Edwards-Knox eyes budget cuts

RUSSELL - Faced with a roughly $800,000 budget gap, the Edwards-Knox Central School Board is considering eliminating some sports, summer band, three teaching assistant jobs and a variety of other items.

The districts school board has already identified $271,598 worth cuts from the proposed 2014-15 budget and meets again Tuesday evening at 6:30 p.m. to continue number crunching before adopting a spending plan.

School Board President Randy R. VanBrocklin said like other north country school districts, Edwards-Knox is faced with increasing expenses and inadequate state aid funding.

Preserving programs that most directly impact students is a top priority, he said.

This board doesnt want to make cuts, Mr. VanBrocklin said. Everything we do, we consider the impact on students. This school board is working really hard.

The district will be receiving $511,318 more in state aid next school year, a 6 percent increase over this year, based on the state budget adopted this week. The figure does not include building aid.

The first round of cuts totaled $271,5598. The largest savings came from cutting a business teacher, $72,501; reducing a Spanish teacher to part time for a $38,977 savings, and reducing the agriculture teaching position to half time for $40,329 cost savings, a special education teacher, $38,400 and a teaching assistant, $29,089.

A list of 30 items are identified on the second round of cuts that will be reviewed Tuesday by the board. The cuts total $287,975 and are listed on the schools website.

They include swimming, golf, junior varsity cheerleading, summer band, and fifth- and sixth-grade basketball, distance learning and drivers education. Job cuts include reducing the librarian job to half time, eliminating a part-time Spanish position, three teacher assistant jobs, an interpreter job and a math coach.

Voters will head to the polls May 20 to vote on the 2014-15 budget and fill two, five-year term school board seats.

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